Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK Motherboard

On Board Peripherals

The Intel Z97 chipset is a single-chip solution, which is also known as a PCH (Platform Controller Hub). This chip has six SATA-600 ports, supporting RAID (0, 1, 10, and 5). The Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK comes with four additional SATA-600 ports, controlled by two Marvell 88SE9172 chips (supporting RAID 0 and  1). The SATA ports are installed on the motherboard edge and rotated 90°, so the installation of video cards will not block them.

Notice that the two SATA-600 connectors at the middle (dark gray) block can be used as two standard SATA ports or as one SATA Express port.

Figure 5: the six SATA-600 ports controlled by the chipset (black and dark gray) and the four SATA-600 ports controlled by the Marvell chips (light gray)

The Intel Z97 chipset supports 14 USB 2.0 ports and six USB 3.0 ports. The Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK offers eight USB 2.0 ports, two at the rear panel and six available through three headers located on the motherboard. There are eight USB 3.0 ports, all of them controlled by the chipset. Four of them (two at the rear panel, and two available through a header) are connected directly to the chipset, while the other four (located in the rear panel) are connected to two USB 3.0 ports from the chipset by way of two Renesas uPD720210 hub chips.

Gigabyte claims that the two USB2.0 ports on the rear panel provide a low-noise power, for use with audio and other DAC interfaces.

The Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK does not support FireWire or Thunderbolt ports.

One of the highlights of this motherboard is the professional-grade onboard audio, generated by a Creative Sound Core 3D chip (5.1 channels, 24 bit sampling, 102 dBA SNR at the analog outputs and 101 dBA SNR at the analog inputs). This chip is covered by a gold-plated shield, which helps to reduce induced noise. All the audio section is physically separated from the other circuitry by a line that glows in red (there are some LEDs at the solder side of the board, near the semi-transparent line). All the capacitors on this circuit are bi-polarized audio models from the Japanese manufacturer Nichicon. The analog audio outputs are independent and gold-plated, and the motherboard also comes with an on-board optical SPDIF output.

The operational amplifier (op-amp) of the analog audio section is replaceable. You can use the Burr-Brown OPA2134PA op-amp that comes with the board, or buy a kit with a different amplifier and an IC extraction tool, to adjust the audio nuances to your personal taste. There are also two small switches that allow you to set the gain of the main audio output.

Figure 6: gain switches and replaceable audio op-amp

The portrayed motherboard has two Gigabit Ethernet ports, one controlled by an Intel chip and the other controlled by an Atheros Killer 2201 chip, which is a high-performance Gigabit Ethernet controller.

The Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK comes with a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module. This module supports the IEEE802.11ac standard (supporting both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands) and Bluetooth 4.0.

Figure 7: communications module

In Figure 8, you can see the motherboard rear panel with a shared PS/2 keyboard/mouse connector, two USB 2.0 ports, DVI-I output, DisplayPort output, HDMI output, six USB 3.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, optical SPDIF output, and the analog audio jacks.

Figure 8: motherboard rear panel